Conservative or Liberal, Deist or Pagan, Jersey transplant or Lehigh Valley native, we're all in this mess together. Let's talk. Let us do no harm. Today's one-liner: "The shortest way to the distinguishing excellence of any writer is through his hostile critics." Richard LeGallienne

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Monday, March 16, 2015

Alternative Transportation Advocate Steve Schmitt is Dead

Dear CAT Community,

It is with great sense of loss to inform you that CAT {Coalition for Alternate Transportation] Director, Steve Schmitt has been recycled into the great universal pool of wisdom and spirit yesterday morning.

I know that many of you are at a distance, either because of life circumstances, or Steve's polarizing way of challenging people. Steve made us think, feel and act with our consciences. He will be missed.

We hope you may honor Steve, today, by going for a walk, a bike/bus ride or picking up some trash in your neighborhood.
Peace to you all in your own ways of processing this loss of our brother and father of CAT. Peace to Steve's family. Peace to all people who have or will benefit from Steve's vision in our community.

Blogger's Note: Schmitt and I quarreled often, and he nearly killed me when he gave me a course on bike safety and rode me right into the Lehigh River. He once stole Joe DeRaymond's car keys during a meeting in Allentown, forcing him to walk ten miles home to Freemansburg. But we also saw eye to eye on many things, and he was a very forceful voice for alternative transportation and improving conditions for pedestrians.

Those bike racks on LANTA buses? That was Steve's doing. Right now he's probably telling God to get out of the SUV and walk a little.

7 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Steve Schmitt will be missed by the "Alternative Transportation" people in the Lehigh Valley. Many of his ideas were encorporated into traffic plans here in the Valley. Bike lanes is just one of them. He would drive the LVPC crazy with his proposals on lowering the traffic numbers on Route 22 by proposing more bike lanes through the cities. He couldn't prove the theory and they couldn't disprove the theory. Bikers and mass transit users have lost a good friend and he will be missed.

I met Steve in the early 1990's, and he was extremely passionate about alternative transportation. I forgot all about him, since, well, I don't think much about alternative transportation. He struck me as a genuinely nice person.